This invention pertains in general to electronic commerce and in particular to a system for shopping from Internet-based merchants where the merchants bid to provide items to customers.
Electronic commerce on the Internet has become commonplace. There are many merchants offering goods and services via web sites on the Internet, and there are an even greater number of customers who purchase the goods and services. In many cases, the electronic commerce transactions involve physical goods. For example, many customers purchase items such as books, compact disks (CDs) and DVDs via the Internet. Customers can also purchase electronic content such as downloadable text and/or music and access to web sites that provide news or entertainment stories.
Most electronic commerce sites on the Internet use ad hoc purchasing systems. For example, a web-based music merchant typically has a purchasing system that is valid for only that merchant's family of web sites. Therefore, a customer must establish an account and/or provide payment information to each merchant that the customer patronizes. These separate accounts are inconvenient to both parties. The merchant must maintain a dedicated account management and payment system. The customer must establish separate accounts with numerous merchants.
Due to these inconveniences, customers are often reluctant to purchase items from smaller or relatively unknown merchants. These merchants lack the brand recognition and trust associated with larger, better known merchants. Therefore, the customers hesitate to engage in risky behavior, such as providing a credit card number or shipping address, to the merchants.
Furthermore, where a customer is interested in purchasing a particular product, the customer must spend time determining which merchants are selling the product to obtain the best price, highest quality product, best shipping options, best return policy, etc. Before being willing to provide personal information to the merchant, the customer may further spend time researching the reliability of the particular merchant to find the merchant with the best reputation, and who is unlikely to share personal information. Thus, the customer may invest a substantial amount of time to explore various merchants that might be selling the product. In addition, the customer has no reasonable way to negotiate with these various merchants selling the product in the hopes of obtaining a more favorable price.
In a reverse auction, a buyer can issue a request for quotation to purchase a good or service and can receive several quotes over a period of time from various merchants interested in selling the good/service to the buyer, where the quotes indicate the prices at which the merchants are willing to sell the good/service. However, the customer often must work with an auction provider or service that can provide the necessary software and know-how to arrange such an auction. The customer may be required to set up an account, acquire certain software, have some knowledge about conducting auctions before any purchase can be made, and so forth. The average customer wishing to make a purchase cannot easily just make a request for a good/service, and have the good/service be provided for a good price and reasonable terms without further effort on the part of the customer. In addition, if the customer successfully conducts the auction, the customer typically still must review the resulting offers provided by the merchants. This can require a good deal of the customer's time and further require that the customer have knowledge about what offers are worth accepting and the value of the good/service desired.
As a result, there is a need in the art for an electronic commerce system that allows customers to be able to purchase a product from a reliable merchant with favorable purchasing details and at a reasonable price, without requiring the customer to invest a substantial amount of time in the purchase transaction.